The Australian Bureau of Statistics has signed a contract with IBM Global Services Australia Pty Ltd for the development and implementation of an Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) solution for the processing of the 2001 Census of Population and Housing, planned to be held on 8 August 2001.

The solution will include provision of 12 Kodak Digital Science 9500D scanners, sourced through subcontractors ACA Pacific Pty Ltd (an Australian SME), and the IFP image processing system developed by IBM. Technical advice and project management elements of the contract will be provided through IBM GSA Pty Ltd, an Australian company formed as a joint venture between IBM, Lend Lease Corporation and Telstra. Kodak Australia will provide maintenance and support services for the scanners.

The ICR system will be integrated with ABS systems for coding of information provided on the census forms. Use of this system will enable the ABS to increase the efficiency of the systems used to process the census forms, improve the quality of census results and allow the census results to be released earlier.

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